A New Way to Unleash Her
Talent

Theater: Stephanie
Zimbalist drops her sophisticate image to play a dog in 'Sylvia'

"If, at the end of the play, one person turns to their
mate and says, 'Honey, let's get a dog,' I have done my
job," says Stephanie Zimbalist,
who plays the adorable, coquettish canine Sylvia in A.R. Gurney's
romantic comedy of the same name, currently at the Coronet
Theatre.

As the scruffy stray who becomes the "other woman,"
disrupting the marriage of Greg (Charles Kimbrough) and Kate
(Mary Beth Peil), Zimbalist sheds the sophisticated image for
which she is known. Dressed in costumes that range from the rangy
rags of a stray to a cleaned-up poodle-ish tutu, she rolls over,
scratches fleas, sniffs, goes into heat, leaps on the couch and
gives doggy kisses with gleeful abandon.

"I am having a fabulous time," says the
down-to-earth 40-year-old actress, best known as the star of the
1982-87 series "Remington Steele,"
as well as for countless TV movies ("The Gathering,"
"Caroline?") and theatrical productions ("The Baby
Dance," "Ad Wars," "Festival").

"I suppose if I ever saw exactly what I was doing,"
she adds, smiling, "I would be embarrassed or
mortified."

Zimbalist saw the off-Broadway production of
"Sylvia" two years ago, although she missed seeing its
original stars, Kimbrough and Sarah Jessica Parker.

"I just loved it," recalls the daughter of veteran
actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. over lunch at a Toluca Lake eatery.
"But my immediate reaction was that wasn't my dog up there.
I want my dog up there. I understand that various Sylvias have
played the street more. I wanted to play the energy of the dog.
But the thing I love about dogs and animals is their
unconditional love. I try to play that with the wife, because a
dog gives a human being a number of chances."

"She's wonderful, I love working with Stephanie,"
says Kimbrough, adding that Parker's and Zimbalist's dogs are two
"entirely different creatures behaviorally. Stephanie is
more intense. Sarah Jessica was a strawberry blond with her hair
all over the place kind of dog and Stephanie is a dark, brunet
dog. She has emphasized more the soulful, serious side of the
character, not to the determent of the laughs. Sarah Jessica was
more sort of a street kid kind of dog. They are both wonderful to
work with."

Early last year, Zimbalist was set to do a national tour of
"Sylvia" with Ken Howard. "The word was that a lot
of theaters, believe it or not, didn't know Gurney (who writes
plays about upper-crust archetypes, among them "The Middle
Ages," "The Dining Room") and they didn't know
"Sylvia". So when they saw the script, they saw the
swear words and went, 'Whoops. Not for our audience.' So the tour
was canceled."

Then last spring, Zimbalist was approached to do a three-city
summer tour on the East Coast. She jumped at the chance, but
nearly canceled after her dog, Dippy, died.

Opening her purse, Zimbalist shows a small photo album
containing pictures of Dippy, an adorable white furry mutt. Her
"precious angel dog" had been rescued off the streets
by Zimbalist's mother 10 years ago. "My mother had her for
five years," the actress says. "When I came back from
[the New York production of] 'Baby Dance,' I said, 'I have to
have a dog.' I'd had another dog named Clarence, and he had been
dead for many years."

She opens her wallet and takes out of a picture of Clarence,
who bears an uncanny resemblance to Dippy.

"My mother gave me Dippy, and she became my child, my
constant companion--50 airplane rides," she says with much
affection. "Every location. She was a great ambassador of
the heart."

But on the morning of June 13, Zimbalist discovered Dippy in
the backyard of her Encino home, the victim of a coyote attack.
"I ran out past the pool and there was my angel ripped open
from the neck all the way to her tail, lying like she was asleep.
I saw her last breath."

Zimbalist says she "just lost it." She called her
agent the next day and told him she didn't think she could do the
play. But for the next two weeks, Zimbalist says, she prayed and
wrote in her journal about the experience.

"It came to me that Dippy wanted me to do this part. So
yes, it's a comedy. Yes, it's a romantic comedy. But my first
mission in this play is to honor what Mr. Gurney intended. My
second, close on the heels of that, is to honor my dog."

Zimbalist pays even further tribute to her pooch in this
production. A picture of Sylvia shown at the end of the play is
actually Dippy, photographed a year and a half before she died.

"So it's for Dip I do this, and for the doggy nation in
general. I've grown up with dogs and love dogs. I think animals
in general have a special message."

Zimbalist has signed on to do "Sylvia" for the next
three months. "I think every day when I go to the theater, I
am doing exactly what I want to do. People come into the theater
in whatever mood they are in, and they leave having been
completely entertained," she says.

Though she's concentrating more on theater these days,
Zimbalist likes to go back and forth between the boards and TV
movies. Her latest film, "Prison of Secrets," airs on
Lifetime on March 16. In it, she plays a housewife and mother who
finds herself sentenced to prison for 10 years.

"For most actors these days, good work is so few and far
between," she says. "I look for a character with an
arc, so there is a journey that they go on from Point A to Point
B. I took this film for the first 10 minutes. She's a person like
you or me--a career, family, a dog and suddenly they are in
prison. It could happen overnight to anybody and the way it's
portrayed absolutely fascinated me."